Author: Alexandra Schaefers

I’m going to have all my books at the Belmont Street Fair this Saturday September 14th from 10 am to 6 pm. I’m in booth #144 between 33rd and 34th street.

I’ve been very busy getting my Landscape Diaries chapbook ready! I’m really happy with how it turned out! The hardest part was choosing which pieces to include. I asked a couple friends to tell me their faves. One of whom is a very gifted printmaker whose work you should check out, Patricia Giraud. I’m not great at analyzing art but it seems to me that Patricia and I both work closely with the moody, dark and intricate beauty of the human connection to the natural world but that we do it it very opposite ways. Patricia renders exquisitely detailed drawings and prints and I make more gestural paintings and whimsical illustrations.

If you can’t make it to the fair Landscape Diaries is available on MagCloud.

The above photo shows one copy on a pile of the original illustrations. I took this to get some Instagram glam in my on-line presence. Probably not most people’s idea of glamorous but I really enjoy turning my writings into illustrated books!

I took a copy to the nearest Little Free Library at 35th and Spring Garden as has become my tradition when I finish a new book. I’ll keep that up until I no longer live in walking distance of a Little Free Library.

It’s
80 degrees as if summer already. I’m on the Lower MacLeay, one of
the most popular trails in Forest Park. When I lived in the
neighborhood I walked its length almost daily and was familiar with
every section. The place where the creek runs along a wide gravely
shore just a tad lower than the trail. The place a small green pool
forms between narrow banks. The spot flanked by a high rock wall
that’s covered in ferns. The stretch with a wide, flat rock in the
middle.

Today
I feel the same deep familiarity and utter strangeness with this
trail as when seeing an ex. There are plenty of landmarks I recognize
but they are interrupted with unfamiliar foliage, reconstructed
bridges and obscured views. I feel like a tourist by the time I cross
Cornell.

As
I walk up the hill I feel suddenly and viscerally at home. It’s
rush hour. I can hear the constant roar of traffic on the road below
but I am filled with peaceful belonging.

I
wonder about home. Do we have a preordained place we belong despite
any roots we have set down elsewhere? Is our birthplace our only true
home that we shirk off in the name of progress? Or do we create home
wherever we care enough to get involved, to fall in love with the
place and not just our doings?

The
latter seems logical. Yet having spent four years in Multnomah
Village, another ten working there, having walked all over its
streets and parks feeling deep affection for its forested beauty I
still feel like a traveler. Do I simply need another 4 years? Maybe I
need to buy a house here to be welcome, what with all the “Stop
Rezoning” signs around. I believe we can preserve the uniqueness of
our neighborhoods while allowing housing for people of all incomes to
be built but its a touchy issue for many.

I
pass the Cumberland Trail which reminds me of my first love. I know a
lot of people don’t think Sasquatch exists but I’m pretty sure I
dated him. I never asked, I just assumed that as cameras became more
prevalent he shaved, moved into a basement studio in the West Hills
of Portland and got a job in a medical office. He’s a sensitive
soul, maladapted for city life but he loved to wander in the woods as
much as I so we got a long for a bit.

We
met on this trail and would take the Cumberland from his old street
into the park for our walks.

I
hike to the Upper MacLeay then sit on a bench admiring the gentle way
the Oregon grape plants on the slope move in the breeze. I listen to
an Orange-crowned Warbler, juncos, jays, and Pacific Wrens all making
their distinct songs the way each plant along the tail has its own
distinct shapes of leaves.

When
I think back to my most innocent self, home is where there are
bluebells, daffodils, rhodies and hydrangea bushes, Doug fir, White
Oak and Big Leaf Maple. There are the songs of robins, Red-winged
Blackbirds, Bob White Quail, jays, flickers, nuthatches and
chickadees. But this feeling of belonging makes me want to fit
somewhere on a molecular level.

I consider the Chinook, the Cowlitz, the Atfalati who were violently forced from this land. Even though their molecules, and the molecules of the place, are one in the same. It seems disrespectful to dwell on these lofty questions, to want stolen land to be my fated place. So being the descendant of settlers I’ll have to settle for the old adage home is where the heart is.

Sasquatch
was not good with money and often predicted future homelessness for
himself. Every so often I check the internet to make sure he’s
still alive. He doesn’t share his data the way the rest of us do. The
first time all I found was a marathon finish time buried in the local
paper. Since he loves to run, it was enough.

Here’s a video of me illustrating a book 5 years ago. I use the same illustration technique I’m going to teach in my upcoming artist book class at Sitka Center for Art and Ecology. Illustrating a book is surprisingly easy if you start all the pages at once on a large sheet of paper.

When I make books for print I illustrate the pages individually but I love this technique because it teaches one how to make creative compositions, have a consistent aesthetic throughout the pages and quickly cuts through the intimidation factor.

My illustration style has developed tremendously since I started making books and I believe that this technique was critical in my development. Also, it’s really fun! I love art techniques that have an unpredictable element in them!

My next greeting card book is actually going to be a revised edition of The Gift of Birds, you’ll get to see that soon.